Sunday, December 14, 2014

The bleeding obvious!

I was telling you about my Bowel Screening. It came back positive. They don't actually use that word, because they would also have to use the word "negative", and that is too much of a statement. Suffice to say, my screening result was "Blood was found". I hot-footed it up to my GP, and she got me an appointment with a gastroenterologist. I saw Dr Sarah Cho this Friday just gone, and she booked me in for a colonoscopy for Friday 23rd January. This will be at Royal North Shore Private (RNS-P) hospital. If push comes to shove, and surgery is required, Sarah will perform it at Royal North Shore Public (RNH) hospital for me. She has assured me that both she, and the anaesthetist, do not charge a GAP for Day Surgery. Medibank Private maintains that all I will have to pay is the $150 excess.

Sarah said that 30% of Bowel Screenings that detect blood, require further surgery. Not just surgery for bowel/rectum/colon cancer. It might be polyps that are bleeding. It might be internal haemmoroids. It might be Diverticulitis. If there are polyps, she will take them out during the colonoscopy. I will cross all these bridges at the end of January. The thing that looms large in my mind, is that right now my weight is hovering around the 41Kg mark I would like to think that at the end of January, my weight does not have a 3 at the front. Putting on weight is so difficult.

Now, there is another thing. To get my papers in order to see Dr Cho, I went through the papers for my Hysterectomy at Easter 2004. Prior to the hysterectomy, when they were trying to work out what was causing the back pain, the bloating and the vomiting, they ordered a colonoscopy. It didn't find much, just two small polyps, unformed and benign. They didn't find the 14x10x8 cyst, because that was attached to one of my ovaries, and looking up my rectum was not gonna find it, even though it was peachy-clean. I read the details of this Colonoscopy, and took a step backwards when I read that one of the medications administered was 160mg of Gentamycin. Now, Gentamycin is not only toxic to hearing, it is also toxic to the Vestibular System.

I cannot find anywhere on the paperwork I have in my files, where it lists the medications administered during the hysterectomy. It was a long-ish operation, where they suctioned the tumour, and also removed both ovaries, the uterus, and the head of the vagina. I was in Prince of Wales Hospital (Randwick) from Easter Thursday, until Easter Sunday. This is four days. I know I was on Morphine (never again!), but I have no idea what else was carousing through my veins.

This was Easter 2004. My walking into things started AFTER that. I remember walking up Bourke Street, Surry Hills at a fair clip-clop as me were bordering on late for a film at Academy Twin in Paddington. I was living at Waterloo at the time. My friend became fed-up with me as I keep diverging from the usual strsight line and smacking into her. This would have been late 2005 or early 2006. I'd had the Peripheral Neuropathy since the late '80s, and the dry cough a similar length of time. The tinnutus was already there when I went for hearing aids 2005. When I worked at University o Technology (UTS) during 2005, they sent selected categories of staff in for physical checkups, one of which was standing on a platform on a ball. We stood on the platform which straddled a ball. The usual time before tumbling was a count of 10. I did not last for a count of 2. The assessor said I should get myself checked. I never did.

Did the Gentamycin administered during my 2004 Colonoscopy affect my Vestibular System I must let my new neurologist know this new information. And I must request that Dr Sarah Cho not use Gentamycin during my 2015 Colonoscopy.

2 comments:

You poor old sole. No wonder you don't weigh much they have just about taken all your insides out. Medications are a problem. I maintain after my last op that the anaesthetic gave me vertigo. I hope this next test doesn't find anything too nasty.I hope you can manage a nice Christmas even with a looming test. It must be fun to have grandkids at Christmas.

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